How Pass the Keys transformed key handovers from a growth bottleneck into a non-issue
KEY SUMMARY
- The Partner: Pass the Keys, one of the UK's largest short-let management companies.
- The Challenge: A rapidly expanding portfolio made manual key handovers, office storage, and property-by-property lockboxes increasingly hard to sustain and costly to run.
- How did Pass the Keys use KeyNest?: They moved key storage and handovers onto a citywide network of KeyNest Points, giving guests and local teams secure access without staff having to travel.
- Key Results:
- Faster Lockout Resolution - Guests locked out mid-stay were redirected to a nearby Point instead of waiting on a team member or an emergency locksmith.
- Borough-by-Borough Scalability - New areas of London were onboarded without building dedicated key infrastructure for each one.
- Reduced Emergency Costs - Fewer emergency call-outs, fewer locksmith fees, and countless staff hours saved from cross-city key trips.
When Pass the Keys, one of the UK's largest short-let management companies, needed a way to manage key handovers across a rapidly expanding London portfolio, manual methods were becoming a liability. Local team members, office storage, and property-by-property lockboxes were creating operational strain as the business scaled.
Replacing manual handovers with a citywide network
Before KeyNest, key management relied on a patchwork of local team members, office storage, and lockboxes depending on the property. As the portfolio grew, this became harder to sustain.
Coordinating handovers and responding to last-minute changes, all while dealing with lost or inaccessible keys, added unnecessary operational complexity. Local teams would end up spending more time travelling to facilitate key handovers rather than focusing on guests and homeowners.
Solving lockouts without the emergency call-out
KeyNest Points was the solution of choice for Pass the Keys’ storage and handover issues, with the service immediately showing its worth; a guest locked themselves out mid-stay and, rather than waiting for a team member to travel across the city (or call an expensive, emergency locksmith) Pass the Keys could instead direct the guest to a nearby KeyNest Point that held a spare key.
Within a few minutes, the guest was back inside, helping to completely avoid a stressful situation.
Scaling into new boroughs without new infrastructure
As Pass the Keys grew and expanded across London, the KeyNest Points network enabled it to grow into new boroughs without building its own physical key infrastructure, or continuing to rely on staff travelling long distances for exchanges.
This has led to faster onboarding for new properties, consistent local support wherever Pass the Keys chooses to operate, and a reliable service for guests, agents and homeowners across London.
Cutting emergency call-outs and staff travel hours
While Jake can’t put an exact figure on it, the impact on costs has been significant. Thanks to KeyNest Points, there have been fewer emergency call-outs, fewer emergency locksmith fees, and countless staff hours saved from no longer having to venture across the city to handover or drop-off keys. Issues get resolved quicker, with a better experience provided for whoever needs spare keys.
For those still relying on lockboxes or office storage for keys
When asked for any advice to give to other operators that still rely on lockboxes or office key cabinets for key storage, Jake had this to say:
